


Cinderella After the Ball

by Miss_Femm



Category: Original Work
Genre: Based on a real person, Buster Keaton - Freeform, Gen, Hollywood, Real world, historical fiction - Freeform, introspective, silent film
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 19:09:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15936524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Femm/pseuds/Miss_Femm
Summary: She was told her life would be a fairy tale, but sometimes, even those don't end well. (Based on Margaret Leahy, one of Buster Keaton's leading ladies. Introspective. Sad.)





	Cinderella After the Ball

**Author's Note:**

> Margaret Leahy won a contest in the early 1920s: the prize was a movie contract in Hollywood. However, it turned out she wasn't the best actress. She ended up making one movie, Three Ages, with Buster Keaton, before quitting the industry and coming to hate Hollywood later in life. I always found her story fascinating, so I wanted to write a little drabble about her. I think a longer piece on her life would be quite interesting, but this'll do for the moment.

Face stony, Margaret opens up the scrapbook for the first time in decades. A host of yellowing newspaper clippings and black-and-white photographs greet her on every page. A full, lovely face gazes up shyly from many of them—it was hers once upon a time.

Just an ordinary shop-girl with a sweet smile, living the dream of millions of young people all over the world. A chance to make it in Hollywood. A fairy tale.

But it wasn’t, not in the end. True, Cinderella got her night at the ball, but she met no prince, she lost her slipper, and she never got it back. Turns out Cinderella was too heavy, too inexpressive, so the fairy godmother got second thoughts.

All for the best, she thinks. Who wants to play pretend like a child forever? Better to remain in rags then return to the void that was Hollywood, where Cinderellas lost their kingdoms on a regular basis.

Slamming the scrapbook shut, Margaret puts it in the hearth. Then, she lights a match…


End file.
